Three cards, and the Celtic Cross

Two spreads will carry you a long way. The three-card spread is quick and clear. The Celtic Cross is thorough, and it has been the best-known large spread for over a century.

Three cards

You met the three-card spread in the last lesson: Past, Present and Future, laid left to right. It suits a general question, a quick look at where something stands, or a reading when time is short.

The same three places can carry other questions too, as long as you decide them before you shuffle. Some readers use Situation, Obstacle, Advice. For a choice between two paths, some lay one card for each option and a third for what they share.

The Celtic Cross

A. E. Waite printed this spread in the book that went with his deck, and recommended it as the most suitable for getting an answer to a definite question. Robert Place suggests it may have come to Waite through Florence Farr, a friend of Pamela Colman Smith's who used it for divination. Whatever its origin, it's now the spread more readers know than any other.

It has two parts. On the left, six cards make a cross, with a smaller cross of two cards at its heart. On the right, four cards stand in a column, often called the staff.

Joan Bunning gives a helpful way to read the shape. Across the cross, time runs from left to right: the past behind you on the left, the future ahead on the right. Up the cross, awareness rises: what lies underneath at the bottom, what you're conscious of at the top. The staff stands to one side and comments on the whole.

Here are the ten places as our readings use them:

1. The Present: what covers you. The heart of the matter.
2. The Challenge: what crosses you. Laid across the first card. What opposes or complicates it.
3. The Foundation: the distant past. Below the centre. Long-standing roots.
4. The Recent Past: what is behind you. To the left. What has just passed but still echoes.
5. The Crown: best outcome, or potential. Above the centre. The best that could come of this, if you rise to it.
6. The Near Future: what is before you. To the right. What comes next.
7. Your Self: how you see yourself. The foot of the staff. Your own stance.
8. External Influences. Other people, and the world around you.
9. Hopes and Fears. What you long for and what you dread, which are often the same thing.
10. The Outcome. The top of the staff. Where it all leads, if things carry on as they are.

Books don't all agree

You'll find the Celtic Cross drawn slightly differently from book to book. Some put the recent past below the centre and the deeper roots to the left. Anthony Louis numbers the crown third. Some readers first choose a card to stand for the person asking, called a significator, and lay the cross on top of it, so their numbering starts one earlier. Most put the past on the left, but some decide the side by which way the figure on the central card is facing.

None of these is a mistake. What matters is to choose one version, know it before you shuffle, and keep to it.

A worked example

Here is a whole Celtic Cross, laid out and read one place at a time. Imagine someone called Robin. They've worked in the same office for nine years, and they're thinking about retraining for something new. Their question: "What do I need to understand about leaving my job to retrain?"

1. The Present: the Eight of Cups. A figure walks away by moonlight from eight neatly stacked cups. At the heart of the matter, part of Robin has already left. The job doesn't feed them any more.

2. The Challenge: the Four of Pentacles. A crowned man clutches a coin to his chest, with another on his head and two under his feet. Across the leaving lies the holding on: security, a salary, the known.

3. The Foundation: the Ten of Pentacles. Three generations of a family gather under an archway, an old man with his dogs in the foreground. The roots are a family in which a settled, safe life counted for a great deal. That explains why the Four grips so tightly.

4. The Recent Past: the Four of Cups. The young man under the tree, arms folded, ignoring the cup held out to him. The last few months have been flat. Things on offer went unnoticed.

5. The Crown: The Star. A woman kneels by a pool, pouring water onto the land and into the water, under one great star. The best this could become is hope restored, and a sense of direction. It's the only Major in the spread, which suggests the bigger theme isn't the job at all. It's getting hope back.

6. The Near Future: the Page of Pentacles. A young person stands in a field, studying a single coin held up in front of them. What's next is learning: a course, a first step, being a beginner again.

7. Your Self: the Two of Wands. A man on the battlements holds a small globe and looks out over land and sea. Robin sees themselves as a planner, weighing up the wider world from somewhere safe. They haven't stepped out yet.

8. External Influences: the King of Pentacles. A king sits on a throne carved with bulls, his robe covered in grapes, a coin in his hand. As the court-card lesson showed, this may be a real person, perhaps a parent or a manager who values solid, proven success. It may also be the general mood of the people around Robin.

9. Hopes and Fears: the Eight of Swords. A woman stands bound and blindfolded among swords, with a way out she can't see. The fear is of being trapped, either in the old job or in a new start that fails. The hope is hidden in the same picture: the way out is there.

10. The Outcome: the Three of Pentacles. A stonemason works in a church while two others look over the plans. If things carry on this way, the road leads towards skilled work that other people value. That's a direction, not a promise, and Robin's choices shape it.

Read one place at a time, that's ten useful observations. But a reading is more than ten observations, and this spread has a clear thread running through it. Finding it is the subject of a later lesson, which comes back to these same ten cards.

What to take from this

• Three cards for a quick, clear look. Decide what the three places mean before you shuffle.
• The Celtic Cross for a tangled question. A cross of six for the situation, a staff of four commenting on it.
• Versions differ. Pick one, learn it, keep to it.

Next, the single biggest lever on any reading's quality: the question you ask.